Fall ritual of high school football begins

Drive this afternoon past the football fields of local high schools and you’ll see a vision golden to area sports fans.

Student-athletes breaking the seal on an autumnal ritual of running, passing and catching, grunting, groaning and straining, liberal expenditures of perspiration accompanying each activity.

The games don’t commence for several weeks, but everything has a starting point, and for the 2013 prep football season, today’s inaugural day of practice is that symbolic dropping of the green flag.

Head coaches expect their players to have retained much of the knowledge imparted during the month of spring ball. They expect to see those same familiar faces while also realizing today’s culture hardly mirrors that of years ago.

It’s all too easy to quit these days, excuses seemingly always at the ready, and the qualities needed for a successful football program require players willing to make the necessary sacrifices over the next few months. It’s what stamps football the sport that it is.

And down here in Florida, it’s numero uno, second to none, particularly at the high school level, where allegiances to programs and alma maters can cause blood to boil and opinions to become fact, at least in the minds of those making them.

It’s the time of the year when the message boards at HTPreps.com start to buzz and crackle with the words of the boastful anonymous. Sarasota vs. Riverview, Venice vs. Manatee, Manatee vs. everyone, my son can whip yours.

This digital dialogue, the occasional assault on grammar aside, can be altogether humorous, insightful, biting and, often, downright nasty. Football can incite such passion, capable of blurring the line between fandom and fanaticism.

But for all the attention the Herald-Tribune showers on prep football, and for as much as some might deem our coverage as never being enough, will the 2013 season be radically different from the 2012?

Stated simply, will it be the Manatee Hurricanes, once again lapping the field in embarrassing fashion?

In recent years, Joe Kinnan’s team has cast a giant red-and-white shadow on clubs throughout our area. Its superiority has been so complete as to raise the question of whether anyone not named the St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders can defeat the ’Canes?

The loss of star quarterback Cord Sandberg, along with three-fourths of Manatee’s talented defensive line, will prove a test to Kinnan, who relishes such challenges, as does any great head coach.

I’d be surprised if Kinnan, his staff and players aren’t up to them all. Shocked, even.

As for everyone else, they all have their own questions. Almost forgotten amid Manatee’s dominance last season is that Palmetto, Southeast, Venice, Lemon Bay and Charlotte also qualified for the playoffs.

The Indians have a new quarterback (Dominic Marino) and district, joining Palmetto, St. Pete Dixie Hollins, Largo and Seminole Osceola. Escaping the ’Canes has to put a smile on the face of Indians head coach John Peacock.

Southeast won its final five games, winning the district, before getting upset by Lake Wales. Can Paul Maechtle’s team begin the season with that same momentum?

Cardinal Mooney joins a district with Out-of-Door Academy and Fort Myers Bishop Verot. The football Gods — no pun intended — have given the Cougars the best opportunity they ever will get to make the playoffs.

Booker, with a full offseason under head coach Johnnie Jones, should be better. The turnaround instituted by D.J. Oglivie down at Lemon Bay should continue.

But in Sarasota, eyes will be upon Sarasota High and Riverview. Fans of both programs expect to see real progress this season, most likely in the form of winning records. The seats already are warm under the butts of head coaches Ed Volz and Todd Johnson.

And it all starts today, with the first day of practice.

The best part of the prep calendar is about to begin.

Doug Fernandes

Doug Fernandes is an award-winning journalist at the Herald Tribune. He has observed the sports scene in Sarasota since 1987.

Last modified: August 5, 2013
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